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Comment by navs | Hacker News Reader

A smaller iPhone the size of the current iPod Nano would be nice. I just can't figure out a solution to the keyboard input problem.

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Forget the keyboard. Those of us hauling an iPad everywhere don't need anything else except a minimal phone which is nothing more than a phone. The simple act of calling still hasn't been perfected the way Apple could do it, esp. if paired to a tablet. Give us an iPhone Nano which auto-syncs contact lists, displays call info on a tablet (if that's on), voice dials, VoIPs to non-POTS audio communications (say: uses Skype or FaceTime's audio to contact someone via email address), has dead-simple configuration, forgoes everything not related to making a voice (or perhaps video) call.

Seriously, has anyone in the industry tried to get a "just a phone" that isn't an inch thick and downright obnoxious to use? Last time I did, the Verizon clerk had to dig thru the back storeroom to find a 3-year-old "candybar" phone (which tried setting itself on fire a few months later) of tolerable size & minimalism. Closest thing out there is is "John's Phone", which still screws up by insisting on doubling the size for storage space for a paper (!) pad and pencil (!).

Please, Apple, an iPhone Nano. You're my only hope.

Just give Siri some time then the keyboard problem will be solved by its removal.

I'm having a hard time thinking that people will really do everything by speaking at their computer. This may work if you drive a car alone, or have a private office, but in more public spaces the cacophony would be bad.

And would you really want the whole train car to know the email you're writing?

But we'll see, naysayers like me have been wrong before. I wrote some predictions of my own about the subject: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/tablet-productivity/

And would you really want the whole train car to know the email you're writing?

In the past I had the same sentiment about phone calls, but what people are willing to talk about on cell phones in public proves me wrong time and again. It certainly isn't ideal but people would probably do it if it meant their cell phone was the size of an ipod nano(I certainly don't see it being the main iPhone but the iPhone nano) or built in to their Google glasses.

Never gonna happen, even if the speech recognition were without flaws. Talking to your device is not a viable input method whenever other people you do not want to disturb are around. That doesn’t make voice recognition useless (I think it’s very useful), but it also doesn’t make voice recognition a viable keyboard replacement.

I have toyed with the idea of a chording keyboard. Either as an App or as a cover for an iPhone/Android.

(Probably a thousand other people have had this idea, too. So the chording addition probably has been tried -- and don't work well.)

I'd love a smaller iPhone.

On the subject of a mini iPad without a retina display -- why do people care? The mini is probably a boring product to fill a market niche and make it harder for the competition. The (third/)new iPad's good display is so readable that even I can read books. A 7" screen will have problems showing a full size pdf, even if it was retina. There are other use cases like gaming, but... Meh.

The 1024 x 768 in a 7" is fine, and one of the big use cases is people with small hands aka children.

I'm actually waiting for a 7" iPad for my son. Have been since my 2 year old son decided my iPad is his favorite toy. He loves the thing, but it's just a bit too bulky for him to use comfortably.

I was thinking about getting him a 7" Android tablet but he has so many apps and movies that he loves from the Apple store, he probably wouldn't be interested. We even tried a dedicated "kids" tablet in a shop, after 2 minutes he got so frustrated he threw it down and toddled off to look at the other toys.

I think I've raised an Apple fan boy.

Morse code!

The onion have a solution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMQNvGilOVQ

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